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Mozilla Launches Firefox OS 3.0 Simulator
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla on Thursday announced the release of Firefox OS Simulator 3.0, polishing all the features in the preview release as well as making a few more improvements. You can download version 3.0 now for Windows, Mac, and Linux from Mozilla Add-Ons. The following features included in the simulator are now functionally stable, according to Mozilla:
- Push to Device
- Rotation simulation
- Basic geolocation API simulation
- Manifest validation
- Stability fixes for installation and updates to apps
- Newer versions of the Firefox rendering engine and Gaia (the UI for Firefox OS)."
So that we can have truly Free mobile OS?
May Peace Prevail On Earth
It's fairly obvious what they are hoping to do. Same bloody thing they did to the web.
Try this tagline for size:
"Hi we are Mozilla and we aim to knock down walled gardens and remove the need to whore every last bit of your privacy just so you can call your mother every now and then"
Mozilla have an interest in expanding the open web ecosystem. Webkit has a monopoly on mobile (very few mobile devs test on anything more than Android/iOS native browsers), and apps compete directly with web technology for users (Android/iOS rely on non-web or proprietary frameworks).
Now it could be said that people need the proprietary or non-web platforms to accomplish tasks, but remember that asm.js and webgl and many other technologies are coming to Firefox OS. There's always an argument for not changing, and there's always an argument for legacy, but encouraging open standards and web tech for users is an important goal for Mozilla.
For users: Because Firefox OS targets lower-spec mobiles than iOS/Android so it will be cheaper (indeed, Mozilla aren't targetting conventional markets).
For developers: because it uses web technology everywhere (it's like every app is a Phonegap/Cordova app) it will be easier for most developers.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/Introduction
Unless they have HOSTS file support and a built-in 64-bit html5 HOSTS file editor, I won't use it.
Because competition is good. Drives prices down, features up and forces cross-scrutiny.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Android and WebOS are both fully open source, free mobile operating systems.
If it was just another phone OS, you might be right, but it isn't.
I don't think you understand what a benefit something like Firefox OS will offer corporates. Once IT departments understand what it really is and how it simplifies/secures their work, they'll be all over it.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Actually, some Android firmwares are Free as in freedom. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyanogenMod and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant_(operating_system)
Considering mozilla's track record with corporate IT departments, I'd say there will be a cold day in hell before anyone sane from those departments will trust mozilla's products enough to actually start using them ever again. The epic bait and switch they pulled with firefox and versioning system followed by the whole "we don't care about corporate" quote from the Asa "foot in the mouth" Dotzler, ensured that any dumbass intern in IT who decides to peddle a mozilla product will be hit on the head with a monitor that has a short version of the entire adventure until he gets the point.
By the time someone on the mozilla leadership team got their people to at least consider that corporate just might actually matter to mozilla which eventually resulted in firefox ESR, it was basically too late. Corporate heads who bought mozilla's message from before and rolled out firefox as the main workplace browser learned their lesson and migrated to the only major browser with sane updating and versioning system. IE. As much as many hated it. And it was completely mozilla's own fault.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... They fucked corporate hard with browsers. How much harder could they fuck corporate sector with the OS? Who will be stupid enough to take that risk when taking their recent history in consideration? How much key infrastructure and support will you move to use it before mozilla goes off the deep end again in the name of the next shiny "right way to develop software" that pisses in the face of reason and sanity?
android is riddled with closed binaries for drivers and shell environments. the shells are one thing as they can be replaced, but the drivers truly hamper maintenance and development on hardware.
Funny, I can download complete source code and assets for Android, compile it and run it on my phone.
The default Android shell is open source and is probably the best to use compared to vendor proprietary shells. Which drivers aren't open source specifically?
Nobody uses WebOS
So why would anybody use Firefox OS? We've been down the path of free, open source, html5 app based operating system before and as you said nobody uses it.
FxOS only runs open web standards (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.) - C/C++ not being one of them.
Any web apps should then be able to run on Android (via Firefox) and in the future Chrome OS, Ubuntu Touch, etc. I say "in the future" because I don't know that everyone has yet settled on an app packaging standard.
If Firefox OS included C code in apps, among other implications, those apps would not be usable everywhere.
Currently though, C/C++ code can be compiled via Emscripten to asm.js, a Javascript subset. It will run in any browser, but Firefox is including an optimized module for asm code which gets closer to native compiled speeds than previously seen. It looks as though Chrome may be including their own asm module as well.
Times change.
Just 10 years ago, Nokia/Symbian dominated the smartphone market. Since then, Microsoft WPx hung on to around 30% for a while before crashing to near nothing, while RIM/Blackberry had the lead in business phones for a while, then ceded it to Apple. Apple's iPhone dominated everything for a few years, but looks like having single figure global market share before this year ends. Android's relative flexibility has hauled it to the front of the pack for now, but this is a dynamic market.
That's what competition does. We've become accustomed to the moribund desktop PC market, where one monopoly stifled innovation for decades. For those of us who like progress, the rate of change in mobile devices is refreshing.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
There's Android and there's Android.
1. There's the version of Android maintained by the AOSP that is fully open source.
2. Then there's the version of Android that Google releases exclusively for its Nexus line of devices. Although it contains some codes common with the open source, AOSP, codes, it also contains some closed source features like Photosphere. Note that Photosphere is not merely an additional application, but Google is marketing is as a part of Android 4.2 released for the Nexus devices. Since Photosphere is closed source, thus this version of Android cannot be said to be open source.
So, if someone says that Android is open source, he's correct. But if someone else says Android is not open source, he's also correct. They're just talking about different Androids.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
If you have any real issues, file a bug report or complain with details. Don't vaguely spread bullshit.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.